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Justice asFairnessA R E S T A T E M E N T

JohnRawls

T H E B E L K N A P P R E S S O FH A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S SCambridge, MassachusettsLondon, England2001

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P A R T I

Fundamental Ideas

1 . Four Roles ofPolitical P hil osop hyl.l. We begin by distinguishing four roles that political phi losophy may

have as part of a society's public political culture. Consider first its practicalrole arising from divisive political conflict and the need to settle the problem of order.

There are long periods in the history of any society during which certainbasic questions lead to deep and sharp conflict and it seems difficult if notimpossible to find any reasoned common ground for political agreement.T o illustrate, one historical origin of liberalism is the Wars of Religion inthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries following the Reformation; thesedivisions opened a long controversy about the right of resistance and liberty of conscience, which eventually led to the formulation and often reluctant acceptance of some form of the principle of toleration. T h e views inLocke'sLetter on Toleration (1689) and M ontes quieu' s The Spirit ofLaws(1748) have a long prehistory. H obbes' sLeviathan (1652)surely the greatest work of political philosophy in Englishis concerned with the problemof order duri ng the turmoil of the English civil war; and so also is Locke 'secondTreatise(also 1689). T o illustrate in our own case how divisive con

flict may lead to political philosophy, recall the extensive debates betweenFederalists and Anti-Federalists in 1787-88 over ratification of the Constitution, and how the question of the extension of slavery in the years beforethe Civil War called forth fundamental discussions of that institution and of

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2 I . F U N D A M E N T A L I D E A S

W e suppose, then, that one task of political philosophyits practi calrole, let 's sayis to focus on deeply disputed questions and to see whether ,despite appearances, some underly ing basis of philosophical and moralagreement can be uncovered. Or if such a basis of agreement cannot befound, perhaps the divergence of phi losophical and moral opinion at theroot of divisive poli tical differences can at least be narrowed so that socialcooperation on a footing o f mutual respect among citizens can still be maintained.

T o fix ideas, conside r the conflict be tween the claims of liberty and theclaims of equality in the tradition of democra tic thought. Debates over thelast two centuries or so make plain that there is no publ ic agreement onhow basic institutions are to be arranged so as to be most appropriate to thefreedom and equali ty of democratic citi zenship. There is a divide betweenthe tradition derived from L o c k e ,whi ch stresses what Constant called theliberties of the moderns freedom of thought and liberty of conscience,certain basic rights of the person and of property, and the rule of lawandthe tradition derived from Rousseau, which stresses what Constant calledthe liberties of the ancients the equal political liber ties and the values of

public l i f e .1

T hi s overs tyl ized contrast br ings out the depth of the conflict.This conflict is rooted not only in differences of social and economic interests but also in differences be tween general polit ica l, economi c, and soc ia l theories about how institutions work, as w e l l as in different v i e w s aboutthe probable conseque nces of public polici es. Here we focus on anotherroot of the conflict: the different philosophical and moral doctr ines thatdeal with how the compe ting claims of liberty and equality are to be under stood, how they are to be ordered and we ig hed against each other, and howany particular way of ordering them is to be justified.

1 . 2 .1 note briefly three other roles of political phi losophy whi ch we consider further as we proceed . One is that political philosophy may contribute to how a pe opl e think of their polit ical and social institutions as aw h o l e ,and their basic aims and purposes as a society wi th a historya nationas opposed to their aims and purposes as individuals, or as memberso f families and associations. Moreover, the members of any c i v i l i z ed society

l. See Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns 1 8 1 9 ) , in, Benjamin Constant, Political Writings, trans, and ed. Biancamaria Fontana (New York/ Cambridge UniversityPress, 1 9 8 8 ) . Constant's dates: 1 7 6 7 - 1 8 3 0 . The phrase libertiesof the ancients refers to the liberties of native-born male citizens specified by the rights of politicalparticipation in the Athenian democracy at, say, the time of Pericles.

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I. FourRolesofPoliticalPhilosophy 3

need a conception that enables them tounderstand themselves as membershaving a certain polit ica l statusin a democracy ,that of equal citizenshipand how this status affects their relation to their social world.

T h i s need political philosophy may try to answer, and this role I callthato f orientation.2 The idea is that it be longs to reason and reflection (boththeoretical and practical) to orient us in the (conceptual) space, say, of allpossible ends, individual and associational, political and social. Politicalphilosophy, as a work of reason, does this by specifying principles to identify reasonable and rational ends of those various kinds, and by showinghow those ends can cohere within a well-articula ted concept ion of a ju stand reasonable society. Su ch a concep tion may offer a unified frameworkwithin whi ch pr opose d answers to divisive ques tions can be made consistent and the insights gained from different kinds of cases can be brought tobear on one another and extended to other cases.

1 . 3 .A third role, stressed by Hegel in his Philosophy of Right 1 8 2 1 ) , isthat of reconciliation: polit ica l phi losophy may try to calm our frustrationand rage against our society and its history by showing us the way in whichits institut ions, when properly under stood from a phi losophical point ofv i ew , are rational, and developed over time as they did to attain their present, rational form. Thi s fits one of Hegel' s well -known sayings: Whe n wel o o k at the wor ld rationally, the world looks rationally back. He seeks forus reconciliationVersbhnungthat is , we are to accept and affirm our soc ia lworld positively, not merely to be resigned to it.

W e shall be concerned with this role o f political philosophy in several respects. Thus I believethat a democratic society is not and cannot be a community, where by a community I mean a body of persons united in affirming the same comprehensive, or partially comprehensive, doctrine. Thefact of reasonable plural ism which characterizes a socie ty with free institutions makes this impossible. 3This is the fact o fprofound and irreconcilabledifferences in citizens' reasonable comprehensive re ligious and philosophica l conceptions of the world, and in their v i e w s of the moral and aestheticv a l u e s to be sought in human l i f e . But this fact is not always easy to accept,

2. The term and its meaning is suggested by Kant's use of it in his essay Was Heisst:Sich im Denken orientieren? Kant s gesammelte Schriften, PreuBischen Akademie derWissenschaften, vol. 8 (Berlin, 1912). For him, reasonis similarlythe faculty of orientation asvery briefly characterized in the text.

3. For the meaning of reasonable as used in the text,see 2,11, 23.

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4 I . F U N D A M E N T A L I D E A S

and political philosophy may try to reconcile us to it by showing us the reason and indeed the political good and benefits of it.

A g a i n , politica l society is not, and cannot be, an association. We do notenter it voluntarily. Rather we simply find ourselves in a particular politicalsocietyat a certain moment of historical time. We might think our presencein it, our being here, is not free. In what sense, then, can citizens of a democracybe free? O r as we shall ask eventually, what is the outer limit of ourfreedom (26)?

One can try to deal with this question by v i e w i n g political society in acertain way, namely, as a fair system of cooperat ion over time from one generation to the next, where those engaged in cooperation are v i e w e d as freeand equal citizens and normal cooperating members of society over a complete l i f e . We then try to formulate principles of political just ice such that ifthe basic structure of socie tythe main poli tical and social institu tions andthe way they fit together as one scheme of cooperat ionsatisfies those princ i p l e s ,then we can say without pretense and fakery that citizens are indeedfree and equal. 4

1.4.T he fourth role is a varia tion of the previous one. We v i e w politicalphilosophy as realistically Utopian: that is, as pr obing the limits of practicable political possibility . Our hope for the future of our society rests on theb e l i e f that the social world allows at least a decent political order, so that areasonably ju st , though not perfect, democratic regime is poss ibl e. So weask: What w oul d a ju st democratic society be like under reasonably favorable but still possible historical conditions, conditions allowed by the lawsand tendencies of the social wor ld ? What ideals and principles wou ld sucha society try to realize given the circumstances o fjusti ce in a democrati cculture as we know them? These circumstances include the fact of reasonable pluralism. This condition ispermanent as it persists indefinitely underfree democrat ic institutions.

The fact of reasonable plural ism limits what is practic ably possib le under the condi tions of our social wor ld , as oppose d to conditions in otherhistorical ages when pe ople are often said to have been united (though perhaps they never have been) in affirming one comprehensive conception.

4. The ideaofpoliticalphilosophy asreconciliation mustbe invokedwithcare.Forpolitical philosophy is alwaysin dangerofbeing used corrupdy as adefense of an unjustand unworthystatusquo, and thusofbeing ideological in Marx's sense.Fromtimeto timewe mustask whether justice as fairness, or any other view,is ideological in this way; and if not, whynot? Are the verybasic ideas it uses ideological? How can we show theyare not?

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2 .AFair System of Cooperation 5

Eventuallywe wantto askwhether thefact ofreasonable pluralism is ahistorical fate w eshould lament. T oshow that it is not, or thatit has itsveryconsiderable benefits, wouldb e toreconcileus inpartto ourcondition.O fcourse, there is a question about how thelimitsof thepracticable arediscerned andwhat theconditions ofour social world infact are; the problemhere isthat thelimits ofthe poss ible are notg i v e nby theactual,for we canto a greater or lesser extent change political and social institutions, andmuch else. However,Ishallnotpursue this deep question here.

2 .Societyas aFair SystemofCooperation2 . 1 . A s I said above,onepracticable aim o fjustice asfairness is to pro

v i d e an acceptable philosophical and moral basis for democra tic institutions and thus to address the question ofhow the claims ofliberty andequalityare to be understood. T othis end w elook to the public politicalculture of a democratic society,and to thetraditions ofinterpretation ofitsconstitution andbasic l aw s ,forcertain familiar ideas thatcan beworkedupinto aconception ofpolitical jus tice.It isassumed that citizens in a democratic society have at least an implicit understanding of these ideas asshown ineveryday political discussion, in debates about themeaning andground ofconstitutional rights andliberties,and the l i k e . 5

S o m e of these familiar ideas aremore basic than others. Thosewe use toorganize and to g i v e structure tojustice as fairness as awhole I count asfundamental ideas.T h emost fundamental idea in this conception o fjust iceis theidea ofsocietyas a fair system ofsocial cooperat ion over time fromone generation to thenext {Theory i: 4). W e use this idea as the centralorganizing idea in trying to develop a political conception o fjustice for ademocratic regime.

T h i s central idea isworked out inconjunction with two companion fundamental ideas. These are: theidea ofcitizens (those engaged in cooperation) asfree andequal persons (7);and theidea of a well-ordered society,that is ,asociety e f f e c t iv e l y regulated by apublic conception o fjust ice (3).

A s indicated above, these fundamental intuitive ideasarev i e w e dasbeing5 . T he exposition of justice as fairness starts with these familiar ideas. In this way we

connect it with the common sense of everyday life. But because the exposition begins withthese ideas does not mean that the argument for justice as fairness simply assumes them as abasis. Everything depends on how the exposition works out as a whole and whether theideas and principles of this conception of justice, as well as its conclusions, prove acceptableon due reflection. See 10.